Trump asks Supreme Court to let him block $4 billion in foreign aid before deadline

The Trump administration rushed to the Supreme Court on Monday to ask the justices to step in and shut down billions of dollars in foreign assistance that a lower judge has ordered the government to pay.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed a request for an immediate halt to the payments, telling the justices this is the third time U.S. District Judge Amir Ali has tried to force the government to pay out money that President Trump believes shouldn’t be spent.

Mr. Sauer said some $4 billion is at stake right now and urged the high court to quickly step in, saying Judge Ali’s ruling “raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers.”

“Given the imminence of extraordinary harms, the government respectfully asks this Court to stay or administratively stay the injunction as to the $4 billion subject to the proposed rescission as soon as practicable,” he said.

Mr. Sauer said Mr. Trump has already asked Congress to rescind the money and the clock is ticking for Capitol Hill. To order the money spent right now would undermine that process.

But lawyers for the groups challenging Mr. Trump said Congress has yet to act, so right now the current law requires the money to be spent. Judge Ali’s order keeps that process going.

“The government’s theory that the agencies need not comply with enacted legislation mandating that they spend funds, because the President has unilaterally proposed legislation to rescind those statutory mandates, would fundamentally upend our constitutional structure,” the lawyers argued.

Both sides are racing against an end-of-month deadline when the current fiscal year ends and the money expires if it’s not already obligated.

The White House says that, because Mr. Trump has proposed rescinding the funds, under the law, he can withhold the money for 45 days. And since that would extend beyond the Sept. 30 deadline, he can tank the money legally.

The groups challenged the so-called “pocket rescission,” and Judge Ali sided with them in a ruling last week.

He said the law allows Mr. Trump to determine how money is spent, but he cannot decide not to spend money Congress has lawfully approved. But under Mr. Trump’s view, any administration could refuse to spend money by waiting until within 45 days of the spending deadline, then proposing a rescission.

Judge Ali said that it cannot survive scrutiny.

“The appropriations acts remain law and, notwithstanding the rescission proposal, ‘Congress has not altered the legal landscape,’” he wrote, citing Supreme Court precedent. “Defendants accordingly remain under a duty to comply with the appropriations laws unless and until Congress does change the law.”

This is the third round of appeals involving the money.

In February, the justices sided with Judge Ali in an interim ruling that said money needed to be obligated, albeit on a more relaxed schedule than the judge had first imposed.

Judge Ali fared worse in the second go-around on his order to dole out the money. The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled that Judge Ali’s theory of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 was wrong.

Initially, the fight was over tens of billions of dollars, though now Mr. Sauer says most of that has been obligated and the remainder is down to $4 billion that Mr. Trump doesn’t want to spend.